


and we shall be together

by lamphouse



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Canonical Character Death, Confessions, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Missing Scene, Spoilers, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 13:44:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20583470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamphouse/pseuds/lamphouse
Summary: It's probably not a good idea to confess your childhood love for someone while they're bleeding out and your literal worst fears are scrabbling over your head threatening to end you both, but Richie's never been one to take a hint.(Spoiler warnings in author's note.)





	and we shall be together

**Author's Note:**

> again, spoilers for the end of chapter 2. also the character death takes place offscreen and after this, so it doesn't end badly, but tagging this "angst with a happy ending" seemed incredibly disingenuous if you know what's coming
> 
> also: this is rated T but like... a borderline T. way tame in comparison to the film and not very graphic, but there is talk of blood

"You can't let me die down here."

Distorted by echo and half-hidden under the continuing sound of those monster crab-spider-whatever legs clattering above them, Richie can hear the others saying something. Something about being small. Honestly Richie couldn't care less. They wanna know small? _Richie_ feels small, like a fucking ant trying to move a giant bottle cap. Except ants have that thing where they can carry things way heavier than them, so maybe not that. Something very small trying to move something very big, metaphorically similar to an ant ramming its forehead into a huge sheet of metal and trying to budge it even a little. Like a grain of sand holding back a tsunami.

Ben and Bev and Bill and Mike run off to... whatever the fuck, squeeze the clown out of a fucking tube so they can curb stomp it, Richie wasn't entirely paying attention the plan. He was a little preoccupied by the whole "warm wet blood on his hands" thing.

_Eddie's_ warm wet blood. Fucking _Eddie_. The most careful man alive, and he's got a goddamn hole in his chest. The man takes a risk for the first time in almost thirty years and he gets gored, which possibly takes the cake for most unfair thing to happen this weekend.

Holding his jacket against Eddie's chest (which, on second thought, was probably the shittiest choice of pseudo-bandage, the leather slick with unabsorbed blood and increasingly hard to hold onto, grain of sand, tsunami) he starts to tug at the drawstring of Eddie's hoodie. Maybe Richie can, like, tie the jacket wad to him long enough to get off one of his shirts better suited to bandaging or something.

And alright, even as he's thinking it he knows it's a shitty idea, but what the fuck else is he gonna do? Just sit there?

"You can't let me die down here, man," Eddie repeats.

Above them, It skitters away in the direction of the shouting so quickly it's comical. The fact that not even Richie laughs really says something about the current nightmare scenario.

"You're not gonna die," Richie mumbles, sharp but distracted. He doesn't look up partly because he's still tugging at the string wrong-handed, but more than that out of simple unwillingness. He keeps seeing things when he closes his eyes, bright around the edges like afterimages—Mike hanging from the rafters in his attic apartment, Bev stepping in front of a train, Eddie in the dark with the light gone out of his eyes, older and younger and the exact age they are now—and he's afraid if he looks at Eddie now he'll recognize the scene.

"I don't wanna die in a fucking cave covered in slime," Eddie continues more quickly, "I don't wanna die, like, I can't even see the sky."

"You're not gonna die." Abandoning the drawstring plan, Richie grabs his face, careful to get the good side. "Seriously, Eds, shut up, you're not gonna die."

Clown taunting echoes over them but Richie doesn't hear it. Now that he's looking he sees the panic already so apparent in Eddie's voice, but for just a minute it flickers into something better, something familiar, that Jesus Fucking Christ Richie half-smile where he doesn't want to laugh, thinks he shouldn't, but can't help it.

"Like ever?"

Contagious fucking smile. "Yeah man, you didn't hear? When we make it out of here we'll be gods, and gods never die."

The shouting continues and Richie still can't make out actual words, but the tone is different. Less scream-y. It gives him just the tiniest fucking sliver of hope. Eddie's head turns reflexively to follow the sound and he winces, but Richie just tugs at his hood again to wipe the blood off his chin with.

All of a sudden Richie makes out someone shouting, "Fucking clown," and immediately repeats it on pure reflex. Whatever they're doing over there is a total mystery to him, but Eddie laughs, and he can't help but feel buoyed by euphoria even as he notes the delay before and the wince after it.

"And you know what, I'm gonna carry you out of here myself," he continues blithely as Eddie's grimace doesn't fade, hoping to distract him as the others keep shouting. He's always been one to take the bait. Right?

"Yeah right. You've got stick arms, Tozier, always have. All those years of jacking off and video games."

"And?" Richie grins as bright as he can even as he adjusts the wad of jacket and presses down again. "That just means my arm muscles are toned as hell. I could carry you on my back like an ant with a paperclip."

"A piggyback?" Eddie smiles back, eyes shut against the new wave of pain. "Just like old times."

"Or maybe bridal style," he blathers, "you'll probably wanna see my face, you're such a romantic."

"S'that a promise?"

Richie looks up from where he's been trying to covertly check how much blood, exactly, is on his hands. Eddie is already looking at him, and although the first thing that Richie notices is how terrible he looks, the second thing, very close behind, is the absence of that reluctant smile. The corner of his mouth is still tugged up but there's no levity behind his eyes. Only seriousness.

"I—" How is this the scariest thing down here? "Yeah, Eds, I'll carry you however you want."

Eddie nods. "Not covered in sewage, though."

Definitely not talking about just the logistics getting out of here then.

"Yeah." He takes a breath. "Eddie, I—"

"Save it?" Eddie says in the kindest possible voice. "When we get out of here."

"Right." Never in his life has Richie Tozier been so monosyllabic.

Beverly shouts something, high above the rest, and Eddie lightly pushes at the arm on the jacket holding him together. Richie nods and rocks back on his knees, but... Well, he can't bring himself to run away one more time.

With his hand on Eddie's face, Richie jerks forward and kisses his forehead, the cleanest patch of skin he can find. Even as he does it he almost wants to throw up again, his heart lodged all the way at the top of his throat, and though everything down here is dank and disgusting he swears for a second he smell the sunscreen Eddie used to wear every day without fail as a kid. He wonders if he still does or if it's just Richie's imagination—or if it matters either way.

It's over in the longest instant, too quickly even for Eddie to finish reaching up and grabbing at the hand on his face. He scrabbles slightly, squeezing too tight, and opens his eyes with that brave look again, and Richie loves him with all the long gone atoms of his younger self and all those of his body now, every one of them aching.

"See ya, dipshit," Eddie mumbles as Richie folds both his hands over the mess at his stomach for him.

"You fucking better."

He means to step back then but can't, caught in a feedback loop thinking about his hands pressed into Eddie's pressed into Richie's jacket into Eddie, whose blood is on Richie's glasses, which are staring back down at him.

Then someone in the distance yelps, the whoosh of what Richie is now intimately aware of as Its leg piercing through the air, and that's enough of that, right? He's not letting anything interrupt this anymore. Time to kill this fucking clown.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a whole ass, only slightly related breakdown last night after finally watching this about like. memory and growing up stuffed in the closet and the bond that only a group of preteen losers can have. and I started writing something else about that but this clamored its way out first—which is probably good cuz if I listened to ribs by lorde one more time I think I might have thrown up lmao
> 
> there was a fucking unholy host of options for this title (everything will be alright by the killers, homesick by the cure, i think we're alone now by tiffany, float on by modest mouse) but the ultimate winner is "[the same deep water as you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V35cxutR7gc)" by the cure, because apparently I'm an idiot masochist now!
> 
> and lemme know what you thought! my tumblr and comments section are always open & I'd love to hear your thoughts. I cranked this out in like half an hour and it's the first time I've written these characters (although I've been reading this specific iteration for years and the book for longer lol) so I hope I did em justice
> 
> tumblr @[lamphous](http://lamphous.tumblr.com)


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